Research Activities

The project aims to examine how and on what groundwork the social welfare system is structured and operated in emerging countries in Asia and Latin America. Thereby, the study elucidates how social welfare institutions operate to govern people. Most existing studies on social welfare in emerging countries have maintained that welfare provision should be improved through achieving universal social right. On the other hand, few studies on both developed and emerging countries address that welfare provision has served to maintain social order by intervening in people’s lives and conditioning people to behave as ideal citizens. Following the latter approach, the project aims to offer critical interpretations on social welfare practices in emerging countries. The idea of governmentality that was proposed by Foucault, which refers to the complex processes by which policies not only impose conditions but influence people’s indigenous norms of conduct so that they themselves contribute, not necessarily consciously, to a government’s model of social order, will be one of the pivotal ideas in the analysis.　In the first year of the project, members will each set research questions and analytical frameworks, paying attention to the historical and cultural context of respective countries.

April 2010 - February 2012